In addition to protecting you from exclusions based on pre-existing conditions, HIPAA also protects you from discrimination based on health-related characteristics. The Act prohibits health plans and insurers from excluding you from coverage or charging you more for coverage because of your health status.

Finally, HIPAA requires health care providers, including doctors and hospitals, to improve their efforts to keep your medical records and health information confidential.

The Women's Health and Cancer Rights Act of 1998

If you are a woman who must have a mastectomy due to breast cancer or another medical condition, this law places some requirements on how your group health plan, insurance company, or health maintenance organization must treat you. Under the Act, you are entitled to:

• reconstruction of the breast on which the mastectomy was performed
• reconstruction of your other breast to produce symmetrical appearance, and
• prostheses and treatment of physical complications at all stages of the mastectomy, including lymphedemas.

The Women's Health Act applies only to plans that already provide medical and surgical benefits with respect to a mastectomy. If your plan does not provide such benefits, then it is not covered by this Act and you are not entitled to the Act's protections.